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Tag Archives: Postcard Project

Before I get into the spotlight I just wanted to say thanks to all the wonderful folks who requested one of the second wave DC Comics postcards! Every single one of them has been spoken for, including the oddly specific Christmas, Birthday and Get Well Soon cards. I’ll be sending the last batch out today so you should all be receiving them within a week or so. Remember, if you want you can take some pictures with the card and send them on in with a link to your blog or what-have-you and I’ll make sure to spotlight you on an upcoming edition of the PCP. Oh, and if you wanted a card but didn’t get a request in on time, don’t fret, in the coming months I’ll have another wave that I’m super excited about. They’re a bit older than the 80s, but the cards are tied into the origin of one of my favorite things from my childhood so it should be fun!

TL’s heart seems to lie with championing the work of Fred Rogers, which is a worthy cause in my book. I was lucky enough that TL took a stroll into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe with the TMNT postcard I sent out, and he even got a second with King Friday. I think his majesty was a bit disappointed that the card wasn’t mailed directly to him, but at the end of the day everyone got a chance to see Donatello kicking Rocksteady’s butt a little, so it’s all good…

If you get a chance, make sure to head on over to some of TL’s sites and don’t forget to check out his Mr. Rogers podcast. You’ll be glad you did!

Well, I had a blast with the first run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vintage postcards, and since there are a slew of super hero flicks coming to the theater this summer I thought it’d be a good time to start up the second run of the Post Card Project! I’ve been digging around and I managed to find another fun vintage book of branded postcards, the DC Super Heroes PC Book from 1981. These have been floating around for the last 30 years just waiting to be mailed out into the world. The book features 28 cards with a bunch of the characters from the DC Universe with an obvious emphasis on Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

Again I have 23 postcards up for grabs (5 of the original 28 are Get Well Soon, Birthday and Christmas cards), so if you’d like to received a bona fide 30 year-old vintage postcard in the mail directly from Branded in the 80s, send me an email with “DC Super Heroes Post Card” in the subject line. Be sure to include your name and snail mail address. As with the first wave’s participants, if you’d like to take some photos with the postcard, you can send ‘em in and I’ll post them here and on the Branded Facebook page with a shout out to your blog or website.

Oh and if you do happen to want a Birthday, Christmas or Get Well Soon DC postcard, let me know and I’ll send them out first come, first serve (I just figured they’d be sort of weird ones to send willy nilly.)

For this week’s spotlight we’re going to get a glimpse at one heck of a wonderfully strange kid…

Strange Kids Club is the brainchild of Rondal Scott III, and is a mecca for all sorts of cool, obscure wonderment from nostalgia and art, to animation and the outright bizarre. In the photo above we get a chance to see club member number 1, Strange Kid, with the weirdest of the postcards that I had to send (featuring a picture that looks a lot like Shredder is proposing to Krang.)

So if you get a chance, head on over to the clubhouse and take a look around. I’m positive there will be something to entice you.

Oh and Rondal is also spearheading his first SKC comic anthology with a great roster of artists, and one heck of an amazing cover by Brent Endstrom! Click on the artwork above and snag yourself a copy!

For the second reader spotlight we have to go all the way over the pond to the UK to visit Mark Gabler. Mark was a little camera shy, but it’s cool because he made sure Danger Mouse and his trusty sidekick hamster Penfold rescued the postcard from their pillar box headquarters! It’s a good thing to because Baron Greenback was looking to intercept it…

If anyone else would rather not show their mug on the site, that’s cool. Take pictures of the postcard around your town or pose it with some of your toys. It’s all about showcasing the readers. Oh and if you have a website or blog to pimp, let me know that too…

A little over a month ago I was inspired by a contest held over at the Retroist as well as Eclectorama’s traveling Spock campaign, and decided that I wanted to introduce a slightly more tactile section to Branded. I’d been sitting on a great gift from a friend, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book of postcards, and it just seemed like it might be fun to send out some vintage postcards to readers of the site. I was really happy with the response and I ended up finding a home for all of the postcard and though it may have taken a little over 20 years, these cards finally completely their destiny traveling through the postal system to locations all over the world. I also put out a call to everyone who received one, that they could send back a photo and I’d post it on the site with some link love. So thus, a new column has been born, the Post Card Project.

The invitation is still open for anyone who received a card this past March, but I did receive a bunch of responses, so from time to time I’ll be posting some pictures and highlighting readers of Branded in the 80s. I’m also getting ready to announce a second installment of mailings as I’ve come across some other great vintage postcards that need to fulfill their postal destiny.

Anywway, getting to the heart of the matter, today’s postcard spotlight is on Christopher Tupa, an amazing artist, podcaster, and comics storyteller who hails from the great state of Texas (birthplace of yours truly)…

When Chris sent in this picture of his local classic movie theater I was all sorts of jealous. There are no theaters around these parts that look that cool!

He also sent in some candid shots of the shell-heads in some more familiar environments…

If you get a chance, stop by and take a gander at some of Christopher’s superb artwork (a lot of which tugs on the heart-strings of my childhood), as well as his blog where he talks about some of the cool stuff he finds in his area like toys, books and art. If you’re a fan of stuff like G.I. Joe, Knightrider, M.U.S.C.L.E.S., and the Goonies, stop by his store. I have some of his original art and it’s so much cooler in person!

**Update**Wow, I’m super stoked by the response to the postcards! A bunch have found homes all over the world, but there are still some left. So if you’d like to receive one and haven’t written in yet, don’t hesitate!

Over the holiday a great friend of the site and all around super gracious guy, HooveR, sent me a neat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles postcard book. It was originally published by Random House in 1990 and features 20-odd removable postcards with all sorts of characters from the cartoon iteration of TMNT. While flipping through it the other day I decided that it could be really fun to finally use this book as it was intended, and it could be a fun way to connect with some readers of this site. These postcards have sat dormant for almost 21 years and they’re begging to be mailed out into the world…

The artwork on these is both kind of goofy and kind of awesome, and this weird dichotomy has to be shared. So I’ve decided that for anyone who is interested in receiving one of these postcards, I’ll mail one out to the first 24 people who send me an email with “TMNT Postcard” in the subject line. I’ll need a snail mail address to ship it to, and please, only one postcard request per address.

I’d like to spread these out over the entire country if possible, and it would be super cool if, after receiveing the card you took a snapshot of yourself with it. If I get any photos I’ll make sure to post them on the site in a new column tentatively called Postcards From the 80s (or something catchier, I don’t know.)

Here’s an example of some of the cards…

So if you’ve ever wanted to get a piece of handwritten correspondence from me and Branded in the 80s, here’s your chance, just click on the card below…